Lampposts III
In the shadow his eyes were asking: can I look
straight in the eyes? Can I look sideways? Can
I jump from above?
Black trucks were passing,
black nights, black children, black mothers. Nicolas
had high fever; how could they take him now while
he had cold and the wind was blowing?
Dress well, be careful what’s the need for goodbyes,
for emotions now, words written with a blue pen in
the lining of the hat?
Others have said the same things, others were saying;
it’s always the same; thank God the dead aren’t hungry.
How can one die?
Very early in the morning with birds chirping among
the cypresses, with just a bit of rosy colour on the window
panes,
the clear reproach (for who?) He too shared his secrets
with an old curtain or with the lower part of the closet
or with one old ravaged army blanket; many secrets,
such as the holed sock in the left shoe, as when
evening comes and the water carriers often stumble
on their way,
although the road is flat and familiar to them. A little
further, lined small community restaurants turn on
their lights for the students, longshoremen and small
vendors amid the steam. What have they gained,
he asked,
them and these? And Maria with the sawdust
in her hair? I pretended I didn’t notice; the opposite
wall was painted yellow as if it had a childish sickness
and him, dead for a while, looking at himself in the big
mirror; his coat that was laid on the back of the chair,
also reflected in the mirror; three buttons were missing;
he must had felt cold. I proposed to sew his buttons
outside of the mirror; the mirror wouldn’t come
to agree; all three buttons were in the fruit basket:
one of them, not matching, red, the other brown,
the third black. They were not matching, how odd,
my God, how odd.
Manolis Aligizakis 